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The kind of people who benefit most from being able to buy cheap clothes made in sweatshops is not Silicon Valley professionals, it's poor people. Get rid of t

The kind of people who benefit most from being able to buy cheap clothes made in sweatshops is not Silicon Valley professionals, it's poor people. Get rid of the unsafe factories and poor people won't be able to afford clothes anymore. And the workers of those unsafe factories won't be able to afford anything. There is no easy answer.

FullMtlAlcoholc 9y ago
The can most certainly afford clothing, if not make their own. What they can't afford is fashion
- saint_fiasco 9y ago
  No they can't. Being able to change clothes (incl. underwear) everyday is a recent custom, and a luxury. Even if they can, the extra money they would have to spend is money that they won't be able to spend in food and other essentials. Time they spend making clothes is time they can't spend making money for buying other things, or in education.
  - eeZah7Ux 9y ago
    > Being able to change clothes (incl. underwear) everyday is a recent custom, and a luxury Replace or just wash? The latter has been absolutely common across many cultures that had access to water and hot enough climate to dry clothes quickly. Sturdy cotton lasts 10 years or even more.
Scramblejams 9y ago
Agreed. When people think they're doing the third world a disservice by buying consumer electronics, I point them to Paul Krugman's essay, In Praise of Cheap Labor: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/1997/03/in_praise_of_cheap_labor.html http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/19...
- kiliantics 9y ago
  This is just fancy apologetics for exploiting cheap third world labour. It completely ignores the brutal violence underlying the whole story. There are good reasons why people there can't have jobs unless we hire them for buttons. It's not the natural state of things that we are generously saving them from. There's a history of colonial domination in all of these places that was exploited to negotiate very one sided trade deals with western nations. So they are being paid buttons because we hold their governments hostage to get nice deals for our industry. And when they don't play ball, we send in the troops like that coup in Chile for a famous example.
tetraodonpuffer 9y ago
> Get rid of the unsafe factories and poor people won't be able to afford clothes anymore poor people have always been able to afford clothes, it was called saving for a while to buy a good pair of pants and mending it for many years until it pretty much fell apart. Poor people would not be able to afford new clothes all the time, sure, but clothes in general most certainly. And let's not forget about thrift stores, go into any goodwill and you will be able to buy plenty of good quality extremely lightly used clothes for very little money.
s73ver 9y ago
I do not believe that for one single second. There is absolutely zero reason whatsoever to disregard safety in manufacturing.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
davedx 9y ago
What a load of rubbish. Ever heard of a thrift shop? Hand-me-downs? There are plenty of ways for poor people to get clothes that don't involve buying stuff produced in a Bangladeshi sweatshop.
crdoconnor 9y ago
"The kind of people who benefit most from being able to buy cheap clothes made in sweatshops is not Silicon Valley professionals, it's poor people." The benefit they gain through slightly cheaper clothes is more than offset by the benefits from the jobs they could have had if the manufacture of clothing (like everything else) was not offshored. The real winner is Stefan Persson and the $28 billion he made from H&M's sweatshop labor arbitrage. "There is no easy answer." There is. Make trade deals contingent on good labor and environmental conditions and ruthlessly enforce that. That will bring jobs home and improve working conditions in 3rd world countries. Then, deal with the fact that that new top is going to cost $4 more and Stefan Persson won't be quite so spectacularly wealthy.
- devdas 9y ago
  As long as the people from 3rd world countries can easily relocate to places with better working conditions.
  - crdoconnor 9y ago
    To be clear, this usually means poor 3rd world countries pay for the educations of their best and brightest and then see no benefit from doing so. Most people ignore this subsidy from poor countries to rich.
    - devdas 9y ago
      I do mean unrestricted. That includes unlimited immigration of unskilled/lower skilled labour as well.
kiliantics 9y ago
But why are they poor to begin with? A big reason is the capture of wealth by industries like those in silicon valley that engage in exploitative labour practices and pay low taxes. There is easily enough money going around to have safe work conditions and still get everyone enough to have access to the basics and then some.

FullMtlAlcoholc 9y ago

The can most certainly afford clothing, if not make their own. What they can't afford is fashion

saint_fiasco 9y ago
No they can't. Being able to change clothes (incl. underwear) everyday is a recent custom, and a luxury. Even if they can, the extra money they would have to spend is money that they won't be able to spend in food and other essentials. Time they spend making clothes is time they can't spend making money for buying other things, or in education.
- eeZah7Ux 9y ago
  > Being able to change clothes (incl. underwear) everyday is a recent custom, and a luxury Replace or just wash? The latter has been absolutely common across many cultures that had access to water and hot enough climate to dry clothes quickly. Sturdy cotton lasts 10 years or even more.

Scramblejams 9y ago

Agreed. When people think they're doing the third world a disservice by buying consumer electronics, I point them to Paul Krugman's essay, In Praise of Cheap Labor: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/1997/03/in_praise_of_cheap_labor.html http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/19...

kiliantics 9y ago
This is just fancy apologetics for exploiting cheap third world labour. It completely ignores the brutal violence underlying the whole story. There are good reasons why people there can't have jobs unless we hire them for buttons. It's not the natural state of things that we are generously saving them from. There's a history of colonial domination in all of these places that was exploited to negotiate very one sided trade deals with western nations. So they are being paid buttons because we hold their governments hostage to get nice deals for our industry. And when they don't play ball, we send in the troops like that coup in Chile for a famous example.

tetraodonpuffer 9y ago

> Get rid of the unsafe factories and poor people won't be able to afford clothes anymore poor people have always been able to afford clothes, it was called saving for a while to buy a good pair of pants and mending it for many years until it pretty much fell apart. Poor people would not be able to afford new clothes all the time, sure, but clothes in general most certainly. And let's not forget about thrift stores, go into any goodwill and you will be able to buy plenty of good quality extremely lightly used clothes for very little money.

s73ver 9y ago

I do not believe that for one single second. There is absolutely zero reason whatsoever to disregard safety in manufacturing.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

davedx 9y ago

What a load of rubbish. Ever heard of a thrift shop? Hand-me-downs? There are plenty of ways for poor people to get clothes that don't involve buying stuff produced in a Bangladeshi sweatshop.

crdoconnor 9y ago

"The kind of people who benefit most from being able to buy cheap clothes made in sweatshops is not Silicon Valley professionals, it's poor people." The benefit they gain through slightly cheaper clothes is more than offset by the benefits from the jobs they could have had if the manufacture of clothing (like everything else) was not offshored. The real winner is Stefan Persson and the $28 billion he made from H&M's sweatshop labor arbitrage. "There is no easy answer." There is. Make trade deals contingent on good labor and environmental conditions and ruthlessly enforce that. That will bring jobs home and improve working conditions in 3rd world countries. Then, deal with the fact that that new top is going to cost $4 more and Stefan Persson won't be quite so spectacularly wealthy.

devdas 9y ago
As long as the people from 3rd world countries can easily relocate to places with better working conditions.
- crdoconnor 9y ago
  To be clear, this usually means poor 3rd world countries pay for the educations of their best and brightest and then see no benefit from doing so. Most people ignore this subsidy from poor countries to rich.
  - devdas 9y ago
    I do mean unrestricted. That includes unlimited immigration of unskilled/lower skilled labour as well.

kiliantics 9y ago

But why are they poor to begin with? A big reason is the capture of wealth by industries like those in silicon valley that engage in exploitative labour practices and pay low taxes. There is easily enough money going around to have safe work conditions and still get everyone enough to have access to the basics and then some.